Posted by Manager, Author at TalkAfrique

January 7, 2013

Uganda Still Behind on HIV/AIDS ARV target

KAMPALA, 7 January 2013 (PlusNews) – Uganda continues to fall short of achieving its goal of ensuring that 80 percent of people living with HIV receive antiretroviral drugs (ARVs) by 2015, according to the Uganda AIDS Commission (UAC).

Some 62 percent of those needing HIV treatment were on ARVs in March 2012, up from 50 percent in 2010. Uganda managed to enroll an estimated 65,493 new HIV cases on life-prolonging ARVs in 2012, bringing to 356,056 the number of those receiving ARVs, according to UAC statistics.

But just 8 percent of these cases were children. A recent government survey has revealed that just 49 percent of infants in need of treatment are receiving it. (The government recommends that all HIV-positive infants under age two receive ARVs.) Some 20,000 to 24,000 children are infected with HIV each year, according to the Ministry of Health. Continue reading “Uganda Still Behind on HIV/AIDS ARV target”

December 23, 2012January 6, 2013

WHO Says Progress in Malaria Threatened by Funding

Insecticide-treated mosquito net for preventing malaria

Recent gains in the fight against malaria could be reversed because funding has stalled, the World Health Organization (WHO) has said.

Its latest World Malaria Report says 1.1 million lives were saved in the past decade but that the expansion in funding from 2004-09 halted in 2010-12.

Less than half of the $5.1bn (£3.1bn) needed was spent last year.

The WHO’s latest figures – for 2010 – show some 219 million people were infected, with 660,000 people dying. Continue reading “WHO Says Progress in Malaria Threatened by Funding”

November 20, 2011

Men of Average Height Produce Most Children (Also in the News)

What role does height have in the number of children?

Women might dream of tall, dark and handsome, but researchers are claiming that it is men of average height who are having the most children.

Scientists studying men in the US said those who were 178cm (5ft 10in) were the most reproductively successful.

Writing in the journal Behavioural Ecology and Sociobiology, they said such men produced, on average, more than two-and-a-half children.

The authors said it might be due to men of average height marrying earlier.

There have been studies which suggest that women prefer a taller man, such as those looking at the choices made during speed or online dating.

Gert Stulp, one of the researchers at the University of Groningen in The Netherlands, said that in Western societies it had been thought that taller men also had the most children.

He reviewed previous studies on height and children as well as publishing new data from the Wisconsin Study, which followed school leavers in 1957 for the next 50 years. There was data on 3,578 men.

Most children

The peak number of children, 2.57, was found in men who were 177.79cm. Men who were 6cm taller or shorter (coming in at approximately 5ft 7in or 6ft) had 2.52 children. Going another 6cm away from the peak gave 2.36 children on average.

Mr Stulp told the BBC: “Contrary to popular belief, tall men do not have most reproductive success. It is average-height men who have the most reproductive success.”

In the study of US men, it seems one possible explanation is in the marriage data.

“It really seems average height men get a partner earlier than both shorter and taller men, so this is a possible mechanism.

“Even though preference studies seem to indicate that taller men are preferred, maybe in real life with actual partner choice, average height men have the most success. Basically they are able to marry at a younger age.”

However, the authors pointed out that: “The effect of height was modest, being almost three times smaller than the effect of income and 4.5 times smaller than the effect of education.”

October 20, 2011October 20, 2011

Libya Dictator Muammar Gaddafi Killed

Libya’s ex-leader Col Muammar Gaddafi has been killed after an assault on his home town of Sirte, officials from the transitional authorities have said.

Information Minister Mahmoud Shammam said fighters had told him they had seen Col Gaddafi’s body, and other officials also said he was dead.

The claims have not yet been independently verified, and other reports said he was captured alive.

The colonel was toppled in August after 42 years in power.

The International Criminal Court has been seeking his arrest.

Golden gun

Nato, which has been running a bombing campaign in Libya for months, said it had carried out an air strike earlier on Thursday that hit two pro-Gaddafi vehicles near Sirte.

It was unclear whether the strikes were connected with the reports of Col Gaddafi’s death.

Mr Shammam said NTC leaders would officially confirm Col Gaddafi’s death later.

“He was killed in an attack by the fighters. There is footage of that,” he said.

Grainy video footage has been circulating among NTC fighters appearing to show Col Gaddafi’s corpse.

The video shows a large number of NTC fighters yelling in chaotic scenes around a khaki-clad body, which has blood oozing from the face and neck.

Driving into the centre of Tripoli, there are throngs of people out on the streets – men, women and children – many hugging each other and chanting. Gunshots can be heard firing into the air – despite a religious edict banning the practice. Car horns are blaring and many vehicles have their emergency lights blinking.

At some checkpoints, security officials are handing out what have been dubbed “revolutionary mints” and biscuits.

All the flags are out. People are genuinely convinced this is the end of Col Gaddafi. They felt that even in hiding he posed a threat to the revolution – but for them this news means the authorities can now start to rebuild the country.

Another video broadcast by al-Jazeera TV showed a body being dragged through the streets which the channel said was that of Col Gaddafi.

NTC official Abdel Hafez Ghoga told AFP: “We announce to the world that Gaddafi has been killed at the hands of the revolution.

“It is an historic moment. It is the end of tyranny and dictatorship. Gaddafi has met his fate.”

An NTC fighter told the BBC he found Col Gaddafi hiding in a hole in Sirte, and the former leader begged him not to shoot.

The fighter showed reporters a golden pistol he said he had taken from Col Gaddafi.

Arabic TV channels showed images of troops surrounding two large drainage pipes where the reporters said Col Gaddafi was found.

NTC supporters gathered in towns and cities to celebrate the reports of the colonel’s death.

Groups of young men fired guns in the air, and drivers honked horns in celebration.

His apparent death came after weeks of fierce fighting for Sirte, one of the last remaining pockets of resistance

October 19, 2011

Malaria Vaccine: Now A Possibility

GlaxoSmithKline research head Moncef Slaoui explains how change of focus to cellular immunity was key to breakthrough

Moncef Slaoui was on holiday with his family when he heard the results of the first small trial, involving African infants, of the malaria vaccine he helped invent. It was a day he would never forget.

“It was 9 August 2004,” he said. “I’m on vacation with my kids, driving between Chicago and Indianapolis and my phone rings and it’s the team calling from Mozambique. I had to stop for at least an hour. I couldn’t drive any more. That was a big, big moment.”

The vaccine had been classed as around 55-60% effective. It was the first sign that Slaoui, now chair of R&D at GlaxoSmithKline, and his colleagues, were going to be successful in cutting the terrible toll of malaria in Africa. Halving the 200m cases a year would save lives and prevent a huge amount of harm.

It had been a long haul. Slaoui had joined the Belgian lab of what was to become GlaxoSmithKline 23 years ago with a background in immunology. “I brought a fresh perspective in what was then modern immunology,” he said. Some of his new colleagues had started work on a malaria vaccine but “it was more or less stalled conceptually”.

No one then had managed to make a vaccine against a parasite infection. Many in the scientific community thought it impossible. “We heard that a lot. There were many controversial discussions on whether we would be able to achieve success,” said Slaoui.

But his ideas drove the effort in a new and successful direction.

Scientists had been attempting to kill off the parasites injected by malarial mosquitoes as soon as they entered the bloodstream. But any vaccine attempting that has only minutes to work because the parasites quickly go to the liver, where the next stage of their life cycle occurs. After five days there is a burst of new parasites in to the blood cells and that is when the child falls ill.

Slaoui suggested using cellular immunity. “Rather than using antibodies that can kill bacteria or a parasite, we used T-cells that recognise [a] cell is not normal because it is infected by a parasite. It opened the opportunity to find the parasite where it [hid] in the liver and kill it there.”

It was easy to say, but hard to do. They needed to find the right adjuvant, a substance that would stimulate the immune system’s T-cells to mount a response against the malaria parasites.

It was in 1996, eight years after Slaoui joined the vaccine effort, that they became sure they were on the right track – during experiments in conjunction with the Walter Reed army medical centre in Washington DC.

Slaoui said: “It was the first demonstration of the proof of concept that we were able to make a vaccine that killed the parasite in the blood and also in the liver.”

The approach used would later be employed in GSK’s pandemic flu and cervical cancer vaccines, which would make money. Slaoui said GSK would not have dropped the malaria vaccine programme, which was solely for the benefit of people too poor to pay, but that the proftable spin-offs undoubtedly helped.

He said: “GSK Biologicals’ leadership was always totally committed to continue the work on the malaria vaccine for two equally good reasons. The malaria vaccine was a great vehicle to advance our platform of adjuvants for many other vaccines, [ones] that were more able to give us a return. But secondly there was truly a commitment to public health in general and our responsibility to society to make vaccines for those who would most benefit, even when they could not afford it.”

This was a stronger motivation in the vaccine community than in the pharmaceutical industry. He added: “Vaccines are associated with public health and the developing world and babies that you save from major infections, and therefore the idealistic motivation is very strong.”

It remained the case, he said. “Yesterday in Seattle [when the results were published] I was with some of the first core-team members – we all started together. It was very emotional.

October 19, 2011

IQ Can Change in Teenage YearsY

The mental ability of teenagers can improve or decline on a far greater scale than previously thought, according to new research.

Until now the assumption has been that intellectual capacity, as measured by IQ, stays quite static during life.

But tests conducted on teenagers at an average age of 14 and then repeated when their average age was nearly 18 found improvements – and deterioration.

The findings are published in the journal Nature.

They have implications for how pupils are assessed, and the age at which decisions about their futures are made.

This study involved 19 boys and 14 girls, all undergoing a combination of brain scans and verbal and non-verbal IQ tests in 2004 and then in 2008.

The results show that a change in verbal IQ was found in 39% of the teenagers, with 21% showing a change in “performance IQ” – a test of spatial reasoning.

The findings are seen to have greater validity because for the first time the variations in IQ correlated with changes in two particular areas of the teenagers’ brains.

An increase in verbal IQ corresponded with a growth in the density of part of the left motor cortex – a region activated during speech.

And an increase in non-verbal IQ correlated with a rise in the density of the anterior cerebellum – an area associated with movements of the hand.

The work was led by Professor Cathy Price of the Wellcome Trust Centre for Neuroimaging at University College London and is published in the journal Nature.

The paper suggests that the results could be “encouraging to those whose intellectual potential may improve and… a warning that early achievers may not maintain their potential”.

Professor Price said: “We have a tendency to assess children and determine the course of their education relatively early in life.

“But here we have shown that their intelligence is likely to be still developing.

“We have to be careful not to write off poorer performers at an early age when in fact their IQ may improve significantly given a few more years.”

The research did not seek to understand the causes of the changes.

One explanation is that teenagers mature at relatively different ages – with “early” and “late” developers – while relative standards in education may play a part too.

One of the participants, Sebastian Friston, now aged 23, recorded a marked increase in IQ between the two tests – from average to one of the highest categories.

Educated in the state sector, he told me he had struggled in his early years, needing remedial maths tuition, but is now planning a doctorate in computer engineering.

“I think the change came in school I started doing subjects that really interested me, that I was engaged in, then I found it easier and far more interesting.”

The research was funded by the Wellcome Trust, one of many projects supported under its programme of Understanding the Brain.

Future work may focus on how adaptable the brain may be beyond teenage years, and the implications for tackling mental diseases and other neurological conditions.

By David Shukman Environment & science correspondent, BBC News

October 18, 2011

Malaria Deaths Fall over 20% Worldwide in Last Decade

There has been a fall of just over 20% in the number of deaths from malaria worldwide in the past decade, the World Health Organization says.

A new report said that one-third of the 108 countries where malaria was endemic were on course to eradicate the disease within 10 years.

Experts said if targets continued to be met, a further three million lives could be saved by 2015.

Malaria is one of the deadliest global diseases, particularly in Africa.

In 2009, 781,000 people died from malaria. The mosquito-borne disease is most prevalent in sub-Saharan Africa, where 85% of deaths occurred, most of them children under five.

An earlier report here incorrectly referred to a 40% drop in deaths.

It has been eradicated from three countries since 2007 – Morocco, Turkmenistan and Armenia.

The Roll Back Malaria Partnership aims to eliminate malaria in another eight to 10 countries by the end of 2015, including the entire WHO European Region.

Robert Newman, director of the WHO’s Global Malaria Programme, said “remarkable progress” had been made.

“Better diagnostic testing and surveillance has provided a clearer picture of where we are on the ground – and has shown that there are countries eliminating malaria in all endemic regions of the world,” he told an international Malaria Forum conference in Seattle.

“We know that we can save lives with today’s tools.”

Global eradication

A global malaria eradication campaign, launched by WHO in 1955, succeeded in eliminating the disease in 16 countries and territories.

But after less than two decades, the WHO decided to concentrate instead on the less ambitious goal of malaria control.

However, another eight nations were declared malaria-free up until 1987, when certification was abandoned for 20 years.

In recent years, interest in malaria eradication as a long-term goal has re-emerged.

The WHO estimates that malaria causes significant economic losses, and can decrease gross domestic product (GDP) by as much as 1.3% in countries with high levels of transmission.

In the worst-affected countries, the disease accounts for: Up to 40% of public health expenditures; 30% to 50% of inpatient hospital admissions; and up to 60% of outpatient health clinic visits.

October 14, 2011

Effects of Obesity Worse for Teen Girls

Obesity ‘worse for teen girls’ blood pressure’

Obesity has a greater impact on the blood pressure of teenage girls than on teenage boys, a US study has suggested.

High blood pressure is a risk factor for heart disease and stroke in later life.

The study of 1,700 teenagers, presented to the American Physiological Society conference, found girls had three times the risk of higher blood pressure.

A British Heart Foundation spokeswoman said a third of young people in the UK were overweight or obese.

The teenagers, aged between 13 and 17 had their blood pressure measured as part of school district health surveys and health checks. Their body mass index (BMI) – a measure of weight/height ratio – was also recorded.

There are two types of blood pressure which are measured. Diastolic pressure – the lower number in a reading – measures the force on the arteries between heartbeats. Systolic blood pressure, represented by the top number in a blood pressure reading, is the amount of force that blood exerts on blood vessel walls when the heart beats.

High systolic measurements indicate risk for heart disease and stroke.

It was found obese boys were 3.5 times more likely to develop elevated systolic blood pressure than non-obese boys.

But similarly obese girls were nine times more likely to develop elevated systolic blood pressure than their non-obese peers.

Danger ‘highlighted’

The researchers from the University of California say the link may be counteracting the known protective effect of the hormone oestrogen on the heart.

Dr Rudy Ortiz, who led the study, said: “Overall, there is a higher likelihood that those who present with both higher BMI and blood pressure will succumb to cardiovascular complications as adults.

“But the findings suggest that obese females may have a higher risk of developing these problems than males.”

Dr Ortiz said the significant difference between boys and girls could be explained by exercise levels.

“Obese adolescent females participate in 50 to 60% less physical activity than boys in the population surveyed.”

Natasha Stewart, senior cardiac nurse at the British Heart Foundation, said: “Here we have yet more evidence highlighting the danger that obesity poses to the health of our children.

“Based on this American study alone, it’s too early to say for sure whether girls are more at risk than boys, but we do know girls tend to be less active than boys which could play a part.

“What is certain is that obesity is clearly putting both boys’ and girls’ health at risk.

“This is a very real problem for lots of families – about a third of young people in England are now overweight or obese.

“Healthy eating and physical activity during childhood is vital to ensure growth, development and a pattern of healthy habits which will carry through into adulthood.”